Analysts expect the local market to continue the upward trend amid expectations for more economic stimulus plans at the G20 summit.

FSC approves securities rule

The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday approved a regulation requiring all of the nation’s securities brokerages to disclose the salaries of their top executives.

Under the “fat-cat” regulation, domestic securities houses will be required to include the salaries of their board members, supervisors and top management, including presidents and vice presidents, in their annual financial reports.

The regulation also requires domestic investment trust firms that suffer losses for two consecutive years or whose board members have collateralized more than 50 percent of their stakes for bank loans to detail the salary information, the FSC said in a statement.

Bad credit ratio rises slightly

The bad-loan ratio for the nation’s credit and cash cards fluctuated slightly in February, figures released by the FSC showed.

Some 40 credit-card issuers averaged a 1.6 percent bad-loan ratio as the end of February, up 0.09 percentage points month-on-month.

No credit-card issuers had a bad-loan ratio above 3 percent except for Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐銀行), whose bad loans were sold off late last month.

Chinfon, Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) and the Development Bank of Singapore (星展銀行) had the highest bad-loan ratios at 12.064 percent, 6.459 percent and 6.255 percent respectively and have stopped issuing new cards.

FSC fines Citibank Taiwan

The FSC yesterday fined Citibank Taiwan NT$1 million fine for failing to seek approval before injecting NT$302 million into a car rental subsidiary previously invested in by the Bank of Overseas Chinese (華僑銀行), which Citibank acquired.

Most vouchers already spent

As of April 1, the nation’s stores had cashed NT$61.37 billion (US$1.81 billion) in consumer vouchers, or 70 percent of the amount distributed, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement yesterday.

The statement said citizens and qualifying residents had collected NT$83.73 billion in vouchers so far. The government has estimated that the vouchers will boost GDP by 0.66 percentage points this year.

NT dollar ‘relatively stable’

The New Taiwan dollar is “relatively stable,” the central bank said yesterday, after the local currency advanced the most this year as stocks rallied.

The local currency traded at NT$33.58 versus the greenback as of the 4pm close, Taipei Forex Inc said. Yesterday’s appreciation was the biggest since Dec. 18. It earlier touched NT$33.192, the strongest level since Jan. 14.

“The US dollar depreciated against major currencies today,” the central bank said in a faxed statement, adding the South Korean won had posted a bigger gain.

The won gained 3.4 percent, compared with a 0.8 percent gain in the NT dollar.